Roll-out across apps

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My friend Katy and I were chatting this morning about this and that and I went into a little moan about my mum. ‘She doesn’t listen, she makes everything about her, she can’t accept how things are changing with age and then she complains when things get too much, she always wants attention but doesn’t give any to me’, you get the idea. My mum is 83 and actually in really good shape. It is just that things are getting a little harder and more tiresome, which she loves telling me about, at length. I am far away from home, my dad passed away three years ago and we all still seem to be getting to terms with that.

So, I was talking to my friend and had this moan, which of course was all on my mum and how she’s changed and how difficult this feels for me. It could have easily gone on for much longer with more and more detail on how I really would love for things to be different. But Katy asked me about something else instead, so we changed subject. She was curious about a post I commented on a while back around ‘insights’. The question there was, why so many people have big earth-shattering realisations, but their lives don’t change and how to handle this in coaching.

Funny, how this works, I was back in my favourite topic, sat up straight and talked with heartfelt conviction. In my comment and in my response this morning, I said that insights need to be translated into now, into reality in this moment for it to have an impact. Composers often talk about getting a download for a tune or song but they still have to translate it into notes and different instruments for others to experience it, too. This feels similar for insight. We can see the greatest things about our behaviour or emotional response, but if we don’t adapt our responses in the moment to this new understanding, we will get the same result that we had before we had the insight.

I was just getting ready for a great example on it, when it dawned on me, that my complaints about my mum a few minutes earlier were a perfect proof of this.

I have had great insights into how our experience is always created from the inside out. One of the first things I teach when I work with children or adults is that feelings do not come from out there. We can only have them as a result of our own process. Without mind, there would be nothing to animate life. It’s the energy that spins planets and makes grass grow. Without consciousness, I would not be aware of anything, neither of what is going on around, nor inside me. Thought is focussed awareness or consciousness, which helps us to bring what we see, hear, touch into relation to us. We pick up on things we know, we categorise, we have opinions, we like or dislike. Through thought we create stories, memories, narrative, the very reality we are in. I know this and can show it to you in games and experiments, through stories and by talking about the insights I had around this.

Yet here I was, talking about my mum, as if she was the cause of my discomfort. As if I could only be okay if she stops doing what she does. As if she has a remote control in her pocket that can switch my moods on or off. As if the only weapon I have is to not call her. It really did look like this to me. And that is what I complained about. I felt like a victim of a circumstance that I can’t change. This in itself is not a big deal. We all do this, and I wasn’t doing any harm. It didn’t feel particularly nice, though, and there was very little I felt was in my control or realm of influence. In fact, there was a big piece I couldn’t see at all: My discomfort with her getting older, frailer, maybe more prone to falls or other health problems, the reverse role of care that happens towards the end of life and me being very far away to take care of it the way I would like.

Translating my insight around how our experience of life is created into this little moment, opened up something quite huge for me. For one, I could see that everything I said about my mum around not accepting change and age is about my own fear projected onto her. This is definitely something for me to look into, rather than for her to change. (There is an action point with agency ;-) ) I felt a lot of compassion for both of us, as we were navigating this new terrain quite blindly. (I’m back in True North territory with more access to my innate gifts of compassion and connection) And I could also see that my super strong, self-reliant, competent mother coming to an age where she might need more support from others will require a learning curve for all of us. (There might be things to organise differently in the future)

In case the difference is still not clear. Translating an insight into this moment is like using a general software update that has happened ages ago on a specific app, now. In real time, it changed my role of a victim of circumstance into an active partner who takes responsibility for shaping the way forward. It helped me realise that I was blaming my feeling annoyed and stretched on something outside of me. But most of all, I realised that before our conversation, I was completely oblivious to this. So cool, thank you Katy!

Can you think of an example where an earth-shattering realisation had to be brought into this moment for change to happen? Maybe you saw something big around your own health or weight or work habits. Maybe you had great insights into your need to be seen, heard, appreciated or valued before but still find yourself triggered. It’s not that the insight wasn’t right or not strong enough. I see insights more like a general software update that may not yet have happened across all apps. By spotting this you can definitely help the roll-out.